There are numerous Electronic Warfare (EW) devices that use Radio Frequency (RF) technology. Military units employ various apparatuses both offensively and defensively to protect soldiers' lives and collect signals intelligence and communicate on the battlefield.
RF signals can be stored and/or analyzed in either the frequency domain, or the time domain. The time domain refers to variation of signal amplitude over time, and the digital information is often conveyed as a function of voltage. Frequency domain refers to measuring amplitude and phase vs frequency. A transformation, such as a Fourier transformation, can be used to convert a time domain signal to a frequency domain signal and vice versa.
Signal sources and interference are often defined in the time domain, while system behavior and signal transformations are more convenient and intuitive when working in the frequency domain. Signals are generally received digitally in the time domain and then often converted to the frequency domain dependent on the choice of the signal processing algorithm to be applied.
Depending on the specific application, it may be advantageous to store frequency or time domain data in real-time, particularly where analysis or responses to military threats or signals may better be undertaken based on data in one of time or frequency domain.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to have a receiver for electronic warfare applications capable of storing signals (or providing signals to be stored) in both frequency and time domains, without the need for processor intensive mathematical conversions between one and the other. This is particularly the case where power and size requirements limit the capability to provide sufficiently strong computing or processing capabilities in a device intended for use in the field. Further, some algorithms benefit from parallel time and frequency domain signal paths.